THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
AND FOR EVERY DAY

© by Orchid Land Publications

[updated 10-18-98]

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     Some people are so intolerant of others' disagreeing with them that the only way they can bring themselves to tolerate such a situation is disingenuously to pretend, or even convince themselves, that others (e.g. those who say that Jesus is not true God) are "really saying the same thing as" themselves--even though they may tell us that they believe that Jesus is God!
     It is more tolerant and honorable to give others the right to disagree, since the only agreement that is worthwhile is that based on being genuinely convinced of this or that.  Everyone should have freedom to propagate truth as one sees it, if it is not a vicious view designed to harm or inevitably harming others; and everyone should accord the same right to others.   We should be able to say that we think others are wrong in disagreeing with our views and allow them to say that we are wrong in disagreeing with their views; that's the way truth works.

     Those who aim at taking over public schools and broadcasting prayers or religious--or atheistic--sentiments that those of different views would have to listen to are going about things in an indefensible manner.  Children should not have to fight adults' battles; they have a hard enough time growing up as it is!  Let's not divide our people along religious lines the way so many unfortunate countries do; nothing good comes of it.  Those who rightly want their children taught religious views can and should do so on their own time and with their own resources.

     An example will illustrate how ecclesiastical bodies should legislate for their own members but not for others, political legislation depending on what all groups in society agree on.  (But state laws should not conflict with natural law.)  One non-Trinitarian American religion with Christian roots regards blood-transfusions as immoral violations of Old Testament kosher regulations.  It would be as wrong for that body to try to put such a view into civil law as it would be for others to forbid abstinence from blood-transfusions.   If the Baptists legislate certain roles for woman that other religions do not accept, others can abide by that as long as they confine their principle to their own folk; it would not be acceptable if they tried to legislate that in civil laws binding on everyone.  Americans believe that society can function properly only when religion and state are separate.  Many people differ on organ-donation, euthanasia, human cloning, abortion, divorce, capital punishment, and so on; while each group has a right to impose its views on its own members, any restriction imposed on society as a whole should be done through the political organs by persuasion and an agreement among a majority of legislators that violates no civil rights. The two areas do not have two different moralities, but two different ways of arriving at legislation enforcing, forbidding, or just allowing certain things that some (but not all) regard as morally binding or morally indefensible.    Of course, restrictions that favor atheists should be nor more tolerated than those that favor this or that religion.  Admittedly, neutrality among religions may favor non-belief; but it should certainly never promote it. 
      It's hard to find anything wrong with kids privately (and communally) praying their invented prayers in some part of a publicly supported school, supported by; their parents' taxes; what is intolerable is to broadcast these prayers publicly in a way that inflicts them even on those who do not accept that approach to religion or who reject religion entirely.  Pagan influences can be combatted by attendance at Sabbath (Saturday) or Lordsday (Sunday) schools.   Those who pretend to be unable to get such schooling going lose some of their credibility in demanding that public schools  give them three minutes of publicly broadcast prayers each day.   And that is especially so if such prayers in themselves (aside from the defiance represented by saying or hearing the prayers) do little to promote any sort of solid belief, but serve only to plague others.
     Like the early Christians, who had a hard time of it when they were a minority in a pagan world, we are a minority in a circumambient paganism of media, etc.   Where Christians are a majority, they should treat minorities as they would like themselves to be treated where they are a minority--e.g. in an Islamic country or in Israël--where kosher laws are not imposed on Christians.  That's how America or any happy society works.  We are a society in which church-goers are a minority living in a pagan culture, one that has influenced the theology and practice of many denominations, a culture in which the Orthodox constitute but a few million people--of whom how many seldom attend a temple and its services?  or contribute more than a paltry amount to the Church?  or subscribe to the pagan values surrounding us rather than the fasting rules, etc., of Mother Church?

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